The Fetish Revisited: Marx, Freud and the Gods Black People Make by J. Lorand Matory

ABSTRACT

J. Lorand Matory demonstrates that the very idea of the fetish stems from a self-aggrandizing European discourse through which the diverse material practices of non-European civilizations were cast down as childish and primitive. Matory directs the anthropological gaze back on Europeans who made a fetish (an object endowed by the human imagination with supernatural power) of the very idea of the fetish. Beyond simply a critique, his text is also a singularly insightful, thoughtful and provocative engagement with the present-day practitioners of traditional West African religions whose ancestors’ practices were so fatefully misrecognized as mere ‘fetishism’ by Europeans. Matory’s bold revisitation of the fetish will be important for moving the cultural study of economics and the economic study of culture beyond Eurocentric presumptions and teleologies. Though it is not Matory’s stated objective, The Fetish Revisited demands that we fundamentally reevaluate the origin of the tools we use to understand the relationship between culture and economics, between the making of meaning and the creation and exchange of things. Neither solely a critique of Eurocentric thought nor a redemption of Afrocentric thought, it is a call to continue to rethink the economic subject.

Keywords:

• Fetish
• colonialism
• Karl Marx
• Sigmund Freud
• West African (Yoruban) culture/religion, theory

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Notes on contributors

Max Haiven

Max Haiven is Canada Research Chair in Culture, Media and Social Justice and co-director of the ReImagining Value Action Lab (RiVAL) at Lakehead University. His recent books include Revenge Capitalism: The Ghosts of Empire, the Demons of Capital, and the Settling of Unpayable Debts and Art After Money, Money After Art: Creative Strategies Against Financialization. More information can be found at maxhaiven.com.